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7/21/12

Dear NRA

Words can't really express how I feel about yesterday's massacre, considering that I have teenagers I routinely drop off at movie theaters, so I'll just pass on a letter that came into my possession. It's from an NRA fan by the name of I. Amanidiot.

***

Dear NRA,

Consider, please, my little Swiss Army knife.

The US Government forbids me to carry it onto an airplane. This really upsets me. Knives don't hijack airplanes, people hijack airplanes. I have the right to do what I want on an airplane. Without my little knife, I can't engage in my favorite hobby, which is whittling dinosaurs.

I have no criminal record. I am a law-abiding citizen. How dare they take away my little knife! I'm outraged.

Some might say --"Well, too bad, we've got to get knives out of the hands of people like the 9/11 hijackers who few planes into buildings, killing thousands of people." What? They did that, not me! My rights are guaranteed in the second amendment. See, right there--

I belong to a militia--membership: me. "Our" mission is to carve all the dinosaurs we can, using "our" arms--which would be the knife. And yet the TSA stops me from bringing it on board, subjecting me to a humiliating search.

They'll tell you it's to prevent this --

But it's so unfair! It's my right to have fun in any way I like.

Thank you for all you've done to protect the rights of gun-lovers everywhere.

No matter how many people are massacred with guns, you've stood up for the important thing. Not this--

Jessica Ghawi, age 24

But the fun of guys like this--

But what about me? If you get to have assault rifles anywhere you like, you get to have Swiss Army knives on airplanes. Think about it, it does!

And don't give me that Modus Tollens!

If you get to have assault rifles anywhere you like, you get to have Swiss army knives on airplanes.

1 comment:

These horrible incidents of violence can happen anywhere. One of your photos shows Jessica Ghawi, who narrowly escaped a public shooting in Toronto last month. And even a place like Norway is not immune, as we've discovered. But the looser the gun laws, the more frequently gun deaths will occur.

In a Hobbesian state of nature, it is rational to arm yourself to the teeth and be ever ready to engage the enemy, who is potentially anyone and everyone. It's a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma, where what is rational for each individual to do leaves everyone in a sub-optimal position. Strong laws, strictly enforced, make everyone safer (even if never perfectly safe). Of course, the USA is not a Hobbesian state of nature, but a nation does not make its citizens more secure by allowing unfettered access to violent means of self-defence.